BEAUTY

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

MODIGLIANI SOUTINE E GLI ARTISTI MALEDETTI:SUZANNE VALADON

Neighborhood of Montparnasse in the early '900: Modigliani, Soutine, Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon, Kisling and many others. Tormented spirits are expressed in a painting that feeds on despair. In this context - which will be called bohemian, Montmartre first and then in Montparnasse, that those artists - all Jews - have found themselves groped for the lot. And jew was also Jonas Netter, an important figure for the artists in the exhibition, he becomes almost a "patron", we must not forget that at the time saw the light of these masterpieces were considered true opprobrium. That's why Netter's intuitions appears like a true prophecy, as well as an act courageous and often disinterested.
I want to focus on the figure of Suzanne Valadon:
Utrillo's mother and wife of André Utter, 20 years younger than her and friend of the son together were defined as the accursed trinity. Valadon for Utter left her husband, a wealthy stockbroker who let her live a comfortable life. Valadon, who was of humble origins, had become a model at 15 under the name of Maria (her baptismal name was Marie-Clémentine), posing for various painters. Radiantly beautiful, slight in stature but with a voluptuous body, she became the lover of many of the painters for whom she posed, such as Puvis de Chavannes or Renoir. Henry Toulouse-Loutrec fell madly in love with her. Stricken with jealousy, because the woman continued to have affairs with other artists, Toulouse-Loutrec compared her to the biblical Susannah, desired by the two older men who catch her bathing. Maria did not mind, indeed she took the name Suzanne. Encouraged by Toulouse-Loutrec, she began to do drawings and pastels, listening to and observing the painters for whom she posed. After the matrimonial interlude, pushed by Utter, she devoted herself exclusively to painting and achieved full maturity in her own style. Her most productive period fell between the 1920s and early 1930s, when her works were shown in the most important galleries.